


The One with a Blanket Fort

by isabeau25



Series: Babes in Space [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Family Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 12:31:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10616982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabeau25/pseuds/isabeau25
Summary: The children build a fortification to keep Keith's bad day out. Written for Voltron Fluff Week.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This happens not long after Shiro invites Allura and Coran to stay on as crew, and everyone is still adjusting to having new people on the ship.

“Shiro, they won’t let me in.”

Shiro looked up from the navigation maps, raising his eyebrow at the sullen note in Allura’s voice.

“Who won’t let you in where?” he asked, figuring any of the kids were fair game, even Katie, if she was feeling stubborn; she was surprisingly forceful with her limited vocabulary.

“The children,” Allura huffed, “all of them. They’ve built some kind of fortification in your room, and they refuse to let me in unless I pay a toll.”

“Well, what do they want?” Shiro asked.

He was skeptical of just how strong a fortification the kids could manage in their bedroom, although he supposed, if Hunk was involved they could have managed something pretty impressive. A fortification sounded like Keith’s idea, and a toll had probably been Lance’s. Whatever was going on, it sounded like a full team effort, since the boys would never have left Katie out of a game they were all playing.

“You’re not suggesting I should give into this sort of behavior,” Allura folded her arm over her chest.

“They’re just playing a game, Allura,” Shiro laughed, “unless you did something to upset them.”

“Of course not,” Allura shook her head, “I just went to give them their lessons, and they wouldn’t come out.”

That was a little unusual, but not too strange. The kids like their lessons most of the time, but like all children, sometimes they just didn’t want to.

“So what did they want?” Shiro repeated.

“Snacks, and whatever it was Hunk was working on, and Keith wanted the book he left in the dining room,” Allura sighed.

“I’ll go check on them,” Shiro grinned.

He stopped in the dining room to get snacks and Keith’s book, although he didn’t know what project Hunk had been working on. He scooped up Katie’s tablet as well.

When he opened his bedroom door, he was greeted by a wall of blankets, reinforced with chairs and rope.

“Anyone home?” he called.

“Shiro!” Lance cheered from behind the blanket, followed by the sound of scrambling, then Lance’s head popped out between two blankets.

“Hi there,” Shiro smiled down at him, “what are you up to?”

“We built a blanket fort!” Hunk yelled excitedly from somewhere behind Lance.

“Daddy!” Katie shrieked happily, and Lance pulled the blankets back farther so she could come out.

She toddled out, latching onto Shiro’s leg, and Shiro turned the ‘toll’ over to Lance so he could pick her up.

“Keith is having a bad day,” Lance whispered when Shiro leaned down to pick Katie up, “we built him a fort to make it better.”

“Good job,” Shiro murmured, kissing Lance’s cheek before straightening with Katie, “so can I come in?”

“Can Shiro come in?” Lance called.

There was some muttering from the blanket fort before Hunk called out, “as long as it’s just dad.”

“Just me,” Shiro assured them, ducking under the blankets when Lance held them open for him.

The kids must have raided the ship for every blanket they had to make their fort. Most of the pillows too. They had made a nest of sorts for themselves on the bed, with colorful blankets overhead to make a roof. There were small lights clipped to the blankets overhead, and Shiro recognized them as the wireless maintenance lights they used in tight places.

Keith and Hunk were on the bed, surrounded by Katie’s toy and crayon drawings. Keith was bundled in his favorite blanket like a burrito, his head resting on Hunk’s lap.

“Shiro brought snacks,” Lance clambered back onto the bed, dropping his arm load.

“Mine!” Katie squirmed in Shiro’s arms when she spotted her tablet, and Shiro dropped her on the bed.

She giggled and bounced, then crawled over to her tablet, picking it up and opening up her space caterpillar game.

“How are you doing, buddy?” Shiro sat on the bed next to Keith and reached out to rub his back.

Keith grumbled and hid his face in the folds of his blanket. 

“You want to come sit with me?” Shiro asked.

Keith nodded and wiggled free from his blanket enough to crawl into Shiro’s lap. Shiro settled him, tucking his head under his chin and bundling him back up in the soft material.

“You brought the crunchy ones!” Hunk scooted over to grab the bag of crackers.

“Mine!” Katie proclaimed, because at this point, everything was hers, even if she had no interest in it.

“You can have some,” Lance pulled a cracker from the bag and gave it to her, “but you have to share.”

She took in and stuck it in her pocket instead of eating it, and Shiro made a note to make sure to check her pockets before he did laundry.

“What’s wrong, firecracker?” Shiro asked quietly.

Keith didn’t answer, hiding his face in his blanket instead.

“Allura was being bossy this morning,” Lance complained.

“She totally was,” Hunk agreed, popping another cracker in his mouth.

“She wanted us to read all this weird stuff about lions and elements,” Lance wrinkled his nose, “it didn’t make sense, and it was boring.”

“She was noisy,” Keith’s voice was muffled by his blanket, “and I wanted to read _my_ book.”

“I’ll talk to her about it,” Shiro reassured them.

No one in particular was in charge of lessons for the kids, but Allura seemed to have taken it upon herself to make sure they were educated, particularly when she felt Shiro was being lax in it. Most of the time, it wasn’t a problem, but sometimes she pushed too hard when the kids weren’t interested.

“Dad, you said they weren’t staying,” Keith wriggled his arms free of his blanket to wrap around Shiro’s neck and pressed his face against his shoulder.

“But I like Coran,” Hunk fidgeted worriedly, “he helps us with the ship, and he teaches me how things work.”

“And he tells funny jokes,” Lance added, “and Allura is bossy, but she’s not that bad, and she’s nice when we get hurt.”

Shiro could have done with less of them getting hurt, but they were little boys with energy to spare confined to a ship, and bumps and bruises were inevitable, some worse than others. He was glad to have Allura around when the kids needed patching up.

“You like when Allura goes shopping with us and takes you to weapons shops,” Shiro rubbed Keith’s back.

“She tells me about the different weapons,” Keith mumbled against Shiro’s shoulder, “and what they’re good for.”

Shiro wasn’t sure how he felt about Keith’s affinity for weapons, but he supposed as long as he learned to handle them safely and was responsible with them, it would be fine. He never had managed to get the tiny pocket knife Keith had had when he had found him away from him. Allura had shown him how to clean and sharpen it.

“So, if I talk to Allura about not being too noisy or bossy when you don’t want to do your lessons, do you think it would be alright if she stayed for a while longer?” Shiro asked.

Keith was quiet for a few minutes as he considered, then he sighed and loosened his grip on Shiro’s shoulders.

“Okay,” he agreed, “but I want to read my books during lessons, not hers.”

“I’ll let her know,” Shiro assured him.

Keith sat back on Shiro’s lap and pulled his blanket back over his head like a hood, then reached for his book. Hunk passed it over to him and offered him some crackers.

“Shiro, you should stay,” Lance said excitedly, “we built the fort ourselves, even Katie helped, and we can sleep here tonight.”

“We can leave it up for a while,” Shiro nodded, “you guys did a great job.”

“Hunk figured out how to hang all the blankets,” Lance jumped up to his feet on the bed, “and the lights were my idea.”

“Pidge handed us stuff and kept Keith company while we were building it,” Hunk added.

“If you stay, we can play games,” Hunk dug through the blankets, until he found a deck of Do-Go cards.

“Or tell us stories,” Lance bounced.

“Daddy!” Katie cheered.

“Lance, please sit down,” Shiro couldn’t help but laugh at their excitement, “we can play for a while, but then we should probably get lunch.”

“But we’re leaving it up to sleep in tonight, right?” Keith asked.

“Not tired!” Katie bellowed.

Lance flopped onto the bed laughing loudly, and Hunk snickered.

“Not now, Pidge,” Keith giggled, “later.”

“We can leave it up,” Shiro gave him a squeeze, glad to see him smiling, and accepted the handful of cards Hunk passed over to him. He immediately gave them to Keith; he still had no idea how to play the game.

It didn’t really matter though. Any game was a good one when you were playing it in a blanket fort with your family.


End file.
